Since the 1990s, a distinctive literary style that blends the real and imagined in intricately intertwined settings earned for Roan Ching-Yueh his reputation as one of Taiwan’s most outstanding contemporary writers and novelists. A Boat on Silvery Waves, with its artful amalgamation of distinct genres and writing styles, is a stand-out work in Roan’s catalogue.
The temporal flow in this work is reminiscent of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and the text unfurls in the rambling fashion of dreams during sleep. Roan transcends the emptiness and randomness of time to take readers back to an imagined childhood, carrying his and other writers’ memories with him as he fords time’s silver stream.
This book also pays heartfelt homage to the author’s most cherished people. Reaching the other bank of that stream, Roan summons departed loved ones and once more pays homage to Chi Ten-Shung, his most beloved author. So many lives lost but not forgotten are resurrected in these pages, which blend together what once was and the imagined into something akin to a photo painting.